There is also a fair bit of sentimentality flying around these days. I am about to officially conclude my junior year, but so many of the people I have come to know and love are graduating in a little over a week. I am especially close to the seniors who participated in the all-theatre term last year, Rep Term. We have such an amazing, close-knit group. I have had classes with so many of them since then, and I feel like we’ve experienced so much as a group. We’ve been in shows together and have always found time to hang out. My friends who are graduating are some of the most amazing people I have shared my last 3 years with. We have lived together, worked together, played together, and sometimes struggled together. We’ve traveled to Ohio to attend professional Theatre auditions. They listen patiently as I excitedly explain what I’m doing in my science classes I am going to miss them so much next year.

Another important thing to note is that Professor Robert Whitlatch (known to students as Doc Bob) is retiring after 42 years of teaching at Knox. Doc Bob was the head of the theatre department when I got to Knox, and he has been the adviser for my theatre major. He has taught several of my classes, directed me in two main-stage shows, attended softball games I pitched when I was playing for Knox my first year, and has been a really awesome part of my Knox experience. Doc Bob helped install the Theatre program when he first came to Knox, and it has certainly grown and flourished over the past several decades. For those of us who have had the privilege of working with him, he will always hold a very special place in our hearts.

And now I am finishing up the 9th week of classes, which means that there is only one more week to go. There are so many papers, final projects, and finals to work on and study for. My Neuroscience lab recently performed an RT-PCR experiment to see if we could identify the TRPM8 receptor in the hippocampus of mice. We will run the gel later today, and I will find out then if we have real data!!! (knock on wood!)

There is the buzz and stress on campus as seniors finish honors projects, senior recitals, etc and everyone is scrambling to get done all that needs to be done. I’m hoping to spend a good portion of my timeover the next week and a half with my good friends who are graduating. So many of them aren’t quite ready to bring up the subject of graduation; the Knox years have truly been some of the best of their lives.

Last weekend were the performances of the spring term mainstage, Hamlet. Working in the costume shop, I knew more about the production than most students on campus, but I still hadn’t actually seen any of the show. It was a very enjoyable play! It was great to see all of the costume shop’s hard work turn out so well on stage. The actors in the show played multiple characters, so the cast list was condensed down to 8 people. This made for some interesting situations, like the same actor playing both Claudius and the Ghost of King Hamlet. The set was quite dark, but offered several levels and lots of poles for Hamlet to sigh, brood, and lean on. It was a long show (approx 3 hours), but it was cut down from the full script of Hamlet (which usually runs about 5 hours). All in all, it was a successful, engaging production.

Next weekend I have the exciting opportunity to travel to Chicago to see my professor’s theatre company perform Passage to India. I will be representing the Knox Ambassadors, so the trip won’t cost me a thing! I’m very excited I’ve heard that the production is very visually appealing, and a trip to Chicago this time of year will be great.

My Neuroscience lab had excellent success over the last two weeks, and we are now in the process of analyzing our data and drawing conclusions from our results. Lab last week was so much fun! We have been testing the effects of menthol on the fEPSP of a rat hippocampal slice, and everything went well 4 out of the 5 times the lab was performed. We are also getting ready for our next round of experiements, which will be a RT PCR lab where we try to find evidence of TRPM8, one of the receptors that reacts to menthol. It is exciting.

Last week was Earth Week, and Knox went all out. We had a band come from Iowa City and play in the Gizmo one evening, a food night where students were encouraged to taste the difference in organically grown vs. non organically grown foods, and a talk by environmentalist Derrick Jensen. Jensen spoke with students for more than 3 hours about becoming aware of the area we’re living in, getting to know the natural things that are here in order to care about and preserve them. He talked about points from his book End Game, including the fact that we are all animals and it is natural for us to consume, but we also must become responsible for maintaining that which we consume. It was a lively and enlightening speech, and it was well attended by the Knox community. Earth Week ended with a big kickball game in the center of campus on Saturday. All in all, it was a very nice week that prompted many discussions about living greener lives.

On Sunday AMEBA, an acrobatic and aerial dance company from Chicago gave a free performance of their show “On the Edge”. They performed nine very unique pieces that varied from solos to the complete company. They used trapezes, silks, bungees, small ladders, and each other to create innovative movements. The dances were very energetic and a real delight to watch.

This week I am participating in the workshops AMEBA is offering. Series 1 is a workshop devoted to an Introduction to Aerial Dance Technique, where we are learning tricks and hangs on the trapeze and some basics of silks. Series 2 is an Introduction to Low Flying Technique, where we use harnesses to hook into ropes or bungees and practice controlled movements, leaps, and formations in the air. Both workshops have been a blast!! I really enjoy doing this sort of work because it combines activities that I love such as dance, athletics, and rock climbing.

Well, I am off to perform my scene from Eurydice. If I can just get through this week, Mid Terms will be over and life will be a bit less hectic. But I’m enjoying it just the same

Of course, spring term also means something special for Knox students; the anticipation and excitement for Flunk Day. One day every year during spring term, students are woken up in the wee hours of the morning to shouts, mayhem, and the eventual realization that all classes and activities have been canceled for the day. The lawns are transformed to a huge spring carnival with all sorts of games, activities, events, food, and freedom. Students and faculty unexpectedly get the entire day off to enjoy the weather and the festivities. One of the best things about Flunk Day is that we have no idea when it is coming. Students often try to figure out when Flunk Day might occur by keeping close tabs on the going-ons at Knox; watching the events calendars to see if a day with nothing going on props up. However, it is rare the anyone actually figures it out, so it is always a big- very welcome- surprise. Ah yes, it certainly is Flunk Day season. I’m looking forward to it!
Knox hosted a fun event on campus today. Out in the beautiful sunshine on the Gizmo patio, the Henhouse Prowlers gave a free outdoor concert. The Henhouse Prowlers are a traditional bluegrass group from Chicago that our environmental club on campus sponsored to play for the college. It was quite a lively event, and everyone really seemed to be enjoying the music and the beautiful day. The music was really good, and the whole thing was quite enjoyable.

In all of this lovely weather, there is of course the reality of school. This week we are entering Mid-Terms, so the next 10 days will be pretty busy for everyone. Also, I am working in the costume shop for the mainstage show Hamlet, which will go up in a few weeks. All in all, I am keeping busy and incredibly happy that the weather has taken a turn for the better!

On Friday, March 28 I attended the Knox College Choir Home Tour Concert. The Choir, which is an audition-only group and quite a time commitment, just returned from their spring break tour in Spain. They talked a bit about the cathedrals and monestaries they sang at, and reported that one of the cathedrals had seven seconds of reverberation! That means that after they stopped singing, their sound continued in the building for seven seconds. The concert was just fantastic. They sang about 20 songs in all different languages and styles. One of my favorites was Double, Double, Toil and Trouble, which took lines from Shakespeare’s Macbeth and wrote it into a fun, Halloween-like song. Other songs were sung so sweetly. The choir has such a pure sound, it was really great to hear them sing. And I was incredibly impressed with their versatility!

That weekend I went to Chicago with a large group of students and faculty in the theatre department to see Sarah Ruhl’s show Dead Man’s Cell Phone performed at the Steppenwolf Theatre. The trip was paid for by the trustee of Knox, and he even paid for dinner afterwards! The show was fun- pretty whimsicle, yet it posed very serious questions about humans replacing real connections for electronic ones. We stayed for a post-show discussion after the play, and many people sought to uncover the symbolism and hidden meanings in the texts. Sarah Ruhl is also known for her written stage directions, which are often very specific, yet open to interpretation. They talked about how Ruhl wrote something like stationary falls from the sky while paper houses float around and then the production team gets to figure out what exactly that means.

One of the classes I am taking this term is Female Playwrights, and interestingly enough, one of the first playwrights we studied was Sarah Ruhl. I read her play Eurydice, which is based on the myth of “Orpheus and Eurydice.” It was a really lovely read. In this class we are reading plays by different female playwrights, and at the same time discussing time period and feminist movements that inform the plays. It is a lot of reading, but our classes are extremely discussion-based so we get to the heart of a lot of issues. It is a very enjoyable class.

I am also taking Shakespeare: Tragedies and Romances. We are reading a play a week and dissecting them in class. So far we have read Titus Andronicus and Hamlet, and I’ve already started on Othello for next week. Our class study of Hamlet goes along nicely with the fact that it will be performed as our mainstage show this term.

My other class is my Neuroscience Research Methods class. I am REALLY excited about this one! We are designing and carrying out three experiments this term as a lab- the class consists of 7 students. We are looking at things that no one has definitively published yet, so even as an undergrad I am doing some leading-edge research. I’ve spent the last several evenings researching methods and concetrations for our first lab, which will be an electrophysiology experiment. We start today

So, that is what is happening on the Knox front this spring term. We’re all waiting for the weather to improve, but there isn’t much we can do about that. But I’m excited about where my classes are going!

This is my last week of classes before finals for winter term. Knox is on a trimester schedule, so we have three 10-week terms instead of two 16-week semesters. This means that I take 3 classes and get to really focus on the subject matter instead of taking 5 classes at once. So, our winter term is beginning to wrap up. Finals will take place on March 13-15, and then I get a week and a half off before spring term begins on March 26th. I really enjoy the ten week terms because they are an intense way to cover subject matter. Having three terms also makes it possible to complete 1.5 years of one subject in only one academic year.

As this term is finishing up I am busy writing term papers, studying, finishing lab reports, and studying some more. Our last day of classes is officially Tuesday the 11th, and then we get Wednesday completely off to study, re-group, and get a handle on our finals. Knox calls that day off “Reading Day” because it is a day purely for students to use to study. One of my favorite parts of reading day are the free root beer floats that students can get in the student union. There is always tons of ice cream and lots of flavors of soda- it is a nice, fun snack before kicking off finals!

The play was translated from its original German by the director, Knox’s very own Professor Neil Blackadder. We also had the pleasure of having playwright Rebekka Kricheldorf with us throughout the run of the show. Each performance ended with a question and answer session with the actors, director, playwright, and technical designers. It was quite a successful run!

We have two and a half weeks left of Winter Term classes here at Knox. My Molecular Medicine class is finishing up lectures on diabetes, and will soon be moving into the blood-clotting disease hemophilia. This class has been intense, but I am learning so much!

I’ve also had the luxury of a few guest lecturers in my Neuroscience class. Professor Judy Thorn, a developmental biologist, came and spoke to us about the development of an organism. This tied right in to our class discussions about neuronal development and stem-cell research. I really like my neuroscience professor, but it is nice to have a change of pace every once in a while. Our second guest lecturer was a senior at Knox who has participated in an internship working in an ICU, and is currently carrying out his senior Honors Project.

All in all, the term continues progressing. It has been quite a work-intensive few weeks, but there is an end in sight.

This week we are hosting various events to celebrate Knox’s great past- and present. This includes our annual Alumni Achievement Awards, in which Knox presents awards to alums who have exemplified personal achievement, creativity, and public service in thier lives. This year we are honoring Richard Cheney ‘43, psychotherapist and former chairman of Hill and Knowlton, Inc.; Alan Anderson ‘56, professor of philosophy and religion at Western Kentucky University; Keithe Belzer ‘85 of, trial attorney; and Ander Monson ‘97, author and poet.

Other events include simple things like serving Mocktails in the Cafeteria last night. Our theme was Chill and Grill, so the caf was decorated and my fellow Knox Ambassadors and I wore silly summer hats. On Friday we are handing out cake for the official day of Knox’s founding! And who doesn’t love cake

With midterms behind me, it feels like this term is rapidly propelling to a close. I still have several weeks left, but the mainstage show goes up in less than a week, and I already have my assignments and test date schedules for the remainder of the term.

It has been an intensely academic term for me. My molecular medicine and neuroscience classes have kept me quite busy and challenged, and I have had a lot of reading for 18th and 19th Century European Drama. With the weather remaining cold and snowy, one thing that has really helped keep me sane this term is our fitness center. The brand new fitness center was just opened two years ago, and it is definitely state-of-the-art. I absolutely love going there to work out. We have elliptical machines, tred mills, stair machines, various bikes, free weights, all sorts of lifting machines, medicine balls, and yoga mats. I just go there for an hour every other day and give myself a hard workout while watching a sitcom or (before the superbowl) football game on one of our four flat-screen TVs. There is always music blasting and I find it to be a great stress release during an otherwise busy week.

Well, that is all I have for now. Happy Birthday to Knox, and congrats to our Alumni Award winners!

Luckily, campus is fairly self-contained, so the weather hasn’t affected classes. I recently had a Neuroscience EEG lab. We applied electrodes to our lab partner’s head, and instructed them to do mental math problems, relax with their eyes closed, hyperventilate, and relax with their eyes opened while we observed their EEGs on a laptop. It was a fun little experiment, and we were able to do it without leaving Knox!

This weekend our Ultimate Frisbee team is hosting a two-day tournament. Various teams from all over Illinois are gathered to play disc in our huge fieldhouse. The tournament has a great atmosphere- teams cheer eachother on if they’re not playing, friends who aren’t involved in disc come to watch. People dye their hair, make t-shirts, and bring food to show support. It’s a fun time

There is only a week and a half until the mainstage show opens, and only one month until spring break. This term is flying by!